Oil Spill continues partially abated but estimates of the flow continue to rise now topping 60,000 barrels a day. Confusion and anger add to the frustration as bureaucratic bungling seems once again to prevail.

The relief wells are still scheduled for August if the tropical weather stays nice but Alex and the Bonnie blossom in the Gulf way over by Mexico and stir the pot pretty vigorously.

Skimmers and the lack thereof have been pretty thoroughly reported in the mass media. Skimmers are boats, ships and even one supertanker (A Whale) that sail through an oil spill collecting the oily water, separating the mess and carrying the oil away.

Microbes are the main way nature digests oil spills and they are hard at work.

In the meantime, it is hot in New Orleans. Really hot. Daily temperatures have been generating heat advisory warnings all month. When temperatures exceed 91 degrees and humidity hovers at 90% the heat index is 105 in the shade and it feels like 120 in the sun. That might not sound like much if you live in the southwest but around here its enough to sap your energy and make you avoid going outside. Those afternoon thunderstorms are appreciated by one and all.

Mayor Landrieu seems determined to once again tear the entire street system asunder at once in an effort to fix it. Work is in progress...well everywhere. Why is it necessary to tear up Carrollton Avenue from the river to the Interstate all at once? Would it make sense to do a section at a time? This seems to be, finally, the business end of the  $200 million in street repairsannounced in 2008 by then and current Public Works director Robert Mendoza and FEMA director Jim Stark:

Up to $40 million worth of repairs for parts or all of 6,000 city blocks are planned. In an illustration presented Monday by Mayor Ray Nagin, the city looked as if it had a bad case of industrial chicken pox, with purple work-site location dots covering most neighborhoods, including eastern New Orleans, Broadmoor, Uptown, downtown, Algiers and Lakeview.
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Nagin noted that the FEMA-financed repairs are only a part of $200 million in street improvements scheduled to begin in 2008.

New Orleans normally launches $30 million to $40 million worth of city street-improvement projects.

The surge of infrastructure activity this year -- which includes the resurfacing and reconstruction of streets, bikeway projects and construction of bridges, sidewalks and walking paths -- has prompted the Department of Public Works to ask for a second contract administrator, another accountant and four engineer interns to be added to a seven-engineer staff.

Of the more than $200 million to be spent on major street-improvement projects, almost $85 million will come from bond-issue money approved by voters in 2000 and 2004, said Mendoza, who will monitor the projects, including the completion of the 13-year-old overhaul of Earhart Boulevard.